Posts tagged with: Matthew McConaughey

By now even many people who didn’t watch the Oscars have seen or heard Matthew McConaughey’s acceptance speech for Best Actor. The Texas actor thanked God for all the opportunities in his life, thanked God some more (cut to Academy members squirming in their seats), and then he told a story about when he was a teenager and was asked who his hero was.

The answer he gave at the time: his hero was Matthew McConaughey in ten years. Then when he was asked the same question ten years later, he gave the same answer: himself in ten years; and so on and so on throughout his life because, as he explained, he’ll never achieve the ideal he was striving for, but the important thing is to aspire to the heroic ideal and chase after it.

It’s easy to make fun of this: an apparently narcissistic actor picking his future self as his hero, thanking God while being infamous for the wild oats he has sown, and drifting into theological incoherence at certain points in his speech. And while all that may be worth noting, I’m inclined to give him the benefit of the doubt. (more…)